The results of the Interactive Fiction Top 50 are in! No fewer than 35 participants cast a total of 437 votes on 183 different games. Of those games, 48 got three votes or more, and those are the games that will appear in the Top 50 below -- so it is actually a top 48. Games which have the same number of votes appear in the same spot, and will be listed in alphabetical order (ignoring "the", "a" and "an").

Does this mean we finally have proof that game X is better than game Y? Of course not. But I hope you will be inspired to try some of these games. Or perhaps you will be inspired to tell us about that game you think really deserves a spot in this list but hasn't received enough attention. Most of all, I would like you to click on the link above and read the reasons that people gave for choosing one game or another. After all, a reason close to your heart may be more important than a large number of votes.

Fuller results, including a list of games which got two or one votes, will follow; but now, without further ado, the top 48!

Groovy; thank you. Will you be doing this as an annual just-before-the-comp poll?

Interesting to compare this to the IFDB star-ratings ... it feels like a few games (Mulldoon Legacy and Bronze for example) get a lot of love there but didn't make this list (and for the oldies, not a single member of the Enchanter trilogy made the cut ...). I imagine, except at the very tip-top, the results will fluctuate interestingly from year to year (whereas the IFDB accumulates in persistent layers ...)

Groovy; thank you. Will you be doing this as an annual just-before-the-comp poll?

I was thinking about it doing it once every two years, but let's see.

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Interesting to compare this to the IFDB star-ratings ... it feels like a few games (Mulldoon Legacy and Bronze for example) get a lot of love there but didn't make this list (and for the oldies, not a single member of the Enchanter trilogy made the cut ...).

Bronze got two votes, and probably would have gotten more if Emily hadn't made so many other good games. Mulldoon Legacy received no votes; Enchanter and Spellbreaker both received one.

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I imagine, except at the very tip-top, the results will fluctuate interestingly from year to year (whereas the IFDB accumulates in persistent layers ...)

Yes, it can fluctuate a lot more than the IFDB can. I also suspect that there are other differences; for instance, I wouldn't be surprised if on the IFDB, "polished but not really special" games will tend to get higher ratings than "special but not really polished" games, whereas in a top like this it would be the other way around.

Anyone who wants to point newcomers at this list might prefer to use the IFDB page I just made, since it contains links to the IFDB game pages, which in turn contain links to game files or online play possibilities.

It's not surprising that the results are different from IFDB star ratings.

On the one hand, a star rating system measures quality, while a "choose your favourite(s)" system measures a mixture of quality and popularity, with popularity being a requisite. If a game is really good but hasn't been played by many, it can get good star ratings but it will never fare well in a "choose your favourite(s)" system.

On the other hand, a star rating computes a mean, while a "choose your favourite(s)" system only takes extremes (good ones) into account. A controversial game that is deemed excellent by some and terrible by others can get high in a "choose your favorite(s)" ranking, but will not do good in star ratings.

In the Spanish community we have always had a "choose your favourite(s)" annual competition, and we now have star ratings as well, and these effects are clearly visible if one compares the rankings.

What's better? I personally prefer star ratings, because I'm more interested in quality than in popularity, and the issue with controversial games mentioned above can be tackled with a histogram of ratings. But each system provides different information, so to each their own.

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